Busy Sir Ben Kingsley is at his best in "Elegy"

Sir Ben Kingsley is everywhere this summer. The Oscar-winning actor turned up as a cross-eyed guru in Mike Myers' "The Love Guru," as an unreliable mentor to a young pot dealer in "The Wackness" and as an unscrupulous Russian detective in the film-festival entry "Transsiberian."

The 2008 role for which he is most likely to be remembered, however, is David Kepesh, a literature professor who becomes increasingly infatuated with his beautiful and much younger student, Consuela (Penélope Cruz).

The movie is "Elegy" (opening at the Seven Gables Friday and more widely Aug. 22 ). It's based on a Philip Roth novella ("The Dying Animal") and, if properly marketed, it could earn Kingsley a fifth Academy Award nomination. When he visited the Seattle International Film Festival in May, he said he'd rarely played a more vulnerable character.

"The degree of exposure of my character was daunting, but I felt secure enough in my own life to do it," said the 64-year-old actor. "His journey, this very articulate terror of intimacy, really appealed to me."

He sees the film as "a parable for men and women. Don't give up, because there's a very strong possibility that the intimate relationship is out there for you." He dedicated it to his fourth wife, Daniela Lavender, without whom, he said, he "would not know the meaning of happiness."

Kingsley was especially impressed with the film's little-known Spanish director, Isabel Coixet, and "her eye for symmetry and balance. She seems to have an awareness of patterns in human behavior, and I tend to look for those patterns." Her previous work, including "The Secret Life of Words," is available on DVD.

He also credits Cruz for her persistence in wanting to tackle the project, which was almost ditched five years ago when funding fell through.

"She hung on," he said. "When it didn't happen back then, for me it was a little like 'out of sight, out of mind,' but she was the champion of the picture. When it resurfaced in 2007, I had a wonderful agent who said, 'I think this is a wonderful project; I think you should attach yourself to it.' Penelope and I were invited to put forth ideas about directors, and we were in agreement on Isabel."

When choosing a part, Kingsley said, he's drawn to "the narrative function of the character." In "Schindler's List," for instance, he regarded his role as a creative accountant as "the conscience of the film." In "The Wackness," "I become the child and the boy becomes the adult."

In the 2005 Roman Polanski remake of "Oliver Twist," Kingsley played Fagin as a man "locked into childhood, who surrounds himself with children, not in a sinister way but because he needs to be a child himself. He was very persecuted, and I'm sure he thought of himself as providing a way for kids to make a living."

Almost from the beginning of his film career, Kingsley has emphasized variety in his choices. Shortly after winning the Oscar in 1983 for playing the saintly title role in "Gandhi," he turned up as a bitter, cuckolded husband in Harold Pinter's "Betrayal."

"I think that jolted me toward another direction," he said. "It was about a man completely at the mercy of his wife and best friend. I also think I did it because it was a lovely opportunity to work with Harold, who is the quintessential modern writer."

He considers his breakthrough with an American accent to be "Bugsy," the 1991 Warren Beatty gangster saga for which he earned a supporting-actor Oscar nomination.

Kingsley was also nominated in the supporting slot for playing a comically vicious criminal in "Sexy Beast" (2001) and again in the best-actor category for his portrait of a desperate Iranian ex-colonel in "House of Sand and Fog" (2003).

During his SIFF visit, he was taking a break from shooting Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island," a drama set in the 1950s in which Kingsley plays what he calls "a radical psychiatrist exploring new ideas."

His production company is planning several projects, "working with writers first, then with directors from the ground up." Among the possibilities are a Don Quixote project, a remake of "Gambit" and a film about Shakespeare based on the book "Will."

He's especially proud of his work in a 1998 television version of "Sweeney Todd," directed by the late John Schlesinger: "It was dark, it was funny, it was murderous." It led directly to the decision to cast him in "Sexy Beast." It also led to his involvement in director Jonathan Levine's romantic comedy "The Wackness."

"I so admired Jonathan for asking me to do it," said Kingsley, "because it's a bit of a leap, rather like 'Sexy Beast,' and I love comedy. I find it a very contagious way of getting an idea across, a musical way of conveying feelings and emotions."

John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com